We love ordering the bread service at Sanaa, it is one of the most popular things on their menu. We usually order all traditional naan bread, but they offer 5 different ones (I believe one of them is very spicy) and if you do not specify which ones, they bring out one of each. You get to choose your dips as well, we choose three of the most mild ones they have, each of the ones we get are delicious.

The lounge at Sanaa is small, they don’t take reservations in the lounge – which is good because most of the time you need a reservation for the restaurant, but here you can come in and get service as long as you can catch a table. There is some seating at the bar, then two 4 top half booths, and a long table – I think an 8 top. Good news, you can order anything off Sanaa’s full menu at the lounge, and they also have special appetizers like the Samosas available here as well.

Biryani with Shrimp

We ordered a Biryani with Shrimp to share, it was so good. I’ve ordered it before and loved it.

They have great coffee and have a full bar, plus some specialty drinks only found at this restaurant. For anyone who likes adventurous eating, you definitely should try Sanaa. It is one of our favorite places at Disney.

Nomad Lounge is a brand new lounge located in Disney’s Animal Kingdom Theme Park. It is situated in the same building as Tiffins which is also new. Tiffins is one of Disney’s ‘signature’ restaurants – the designation denotes it is one of their highest level of food and service that they offer. There are roughly 15 signature restaurants at Walt Disney World. The Nomad Lounge offers high end nibbles and refreshments.

The Nomad Lounge had an Adventurer’s Club type atmosphere, rich colors, dark woods, and unique decor gives it a British Colonial feel, slightly exotic – but also luxurious. It is open seating, both indoor or outdoor. I’m sure the outdoor seating will be very nice once the weather cools off, right now there are too many mosquitoes.

We ordered the vegetarian summer rolls and the cheese board.

Vegetarian Summer Rolls $7

These were really delicious, but very hard to eat. When they cut them in half like this, they are hard to hold together, they just want to fall apart. The outer wrapper is very chewy, be careful eating it. This was slightly spicy, the ponzu sauce was really complementary.

Selection of Artisanal Cheeses $12

The cheese selection was very nice. The chunky yellow one was an aged cow cheese, reminded me of cheddar. The white one on the left was a goat cheese, very mild though which was perfect for my taste, I don’t really like strong goat cheese. And the white one in the middle back was a tangy blue cheese. A small portion of marcona almonds, toasted bread (very crisp), and a gooseberry for accompaniments.

Kungaloosh Ale $8.75

If you are a fan of Sam Adams Winter Lager, you will probably really enjoy this Kungaloosh Spiced Excursion Ale, it has some unique spices and nutty finish. It went really well with the food.

Keep in mind the portion sizes are small, prices are a bit high – this is pretty typical for any of the lounges, especially those adjacent to signature restaurants. They are taking the Tables In Wonderland card here (20% discount for members – http://www.tablesinwonderland.com).

I’d say the best time to visit the Nomad Lounge would be around the last hour or hour and a half before the park closes. The crowd thinned out the later it got. I’d definitely go back and am also interested in trying Tiffins as well.

Tucked inside Trail’s End at Fort Wilderness, you will find Crockett’s Tavern. It’s a small bar that serves beer, wine, mixed drinks, as well as some food. It is strictly bar seating, there are roughly 8 seats available if my memory serves. Their menu is limited, but it is a satisfying nonetheless. We enjoy their pizza and chicken wings, and we’ll come here just for pizza and beer sometimes. They are open until about 10 pm each night. For Disney food their prices are pretty good, a large cheese pizza is about $15 before tax and tip.

The pizza itself has a thick crust, the dough is slightly biscuit-y, the sauce and cheese is good, and it’s really filling. I can usually only eat two slices. Their chicken wings are huge, they don’t separate the pieces, so you have a wing/leg combo. Their blue cheese is really good. I’ve been known to dip my pizza crust (for families with dogs, this is often called a pizza bone) in blue cheese.

There have a couple beers on draft, usually a seasonal Sam Adams and Yuengling, other beers available in the bottle, and a full bar.

If bar food isn’t your thing, Trail’s End offers a full dinner buffet.

The Fort Wilderness settlement area is off the beaten path and surrounded by lovely pine trees. If you are there during the day, you can see some of the ponies over at Triple D Ranch, you can watch fireworks from the lakeside, you can also watch the Electric Water Pageant. There are even wagon rides (I believe adults wagon ride is about $8 each) and carriage rides available (I believe they are $45+).

Do you have a favorite restaurant or bar at Disney? A favorite comfort food?

This dish was very rich, the tartar sauce went well with the crab cake. The succotash was good, just a tad bit on the salty side. Overall, this was really good. I would recommend sharing one.
I was hoping to get a nice fresh salad, I was hoping they had one, but they have a very limited menu here. They used to have seafood tacos which were awesome, but the bartender said they changed their menu back around Superbowl, and added wings and gourmet potato chips instead…meh…

The Wave is located in the ground floor of the Disney Contemporary Resort. The theme of the restaurant is that specialize in organically grown, sustainable, and locally sourced food. It is one of the better table service places to eat at Disney. If you are considering dining here, I would recommend taking a look at their menu online, they change their menu seasonally.

Personally, I prefer to bar hop and eat in The Wave’s Lounge, since they offer the Fish Tacos and that is my favorite item on the menu. Although it isn’t really one of my favorite places to eat, partly due to the lack of Disney theming and limited selection, we do eat at occasionally when we are in the Magic Kingdom and Monorail Resort area.

If you haven’t noticed, we like to have appetizers as meals, we usually will pick one or two lounges and fill up on appetizers. Most of the time, like at The Wave or Raglan Road, you can easily get delicious and satisfying meals out of appetizers. If you aren’t able to find enough on one menu, the great thing about the monorail is that you can hop back on and head over to the next hotel and snack some more.

Everything here was delicious. The only thing I wouldn’t order again was the vegetarian flat bread, it was extremely small for the price, not really a good value, I’d rather get something else next time.

The have a few very high-end beers on their menu, prices can be a little shocking, if in doubt – ask first. I believe the St. Bernardus Abt 12 was about $10.

One of the best things about the Disney lounges is that you don’t every need a reservation. It is open seating, and they are usually not too busy. The bar here at The Wave is very comfortable to sit, eat, and drink; and the service was top-notch.

Raglan Road is located in Downtown Disney at Walt Disney World. They often have live entertainment in the evenings. The restaurant and bar is relatively large, but even with all that space they are usually very crowded for dinner time, well into the evening with folks coming in for drinks, food, and live music. We prefer to get here really early or really late in order to avoid the largest crowds. Service is usually very good, but can vary.

The menu is pretty vast, I don’t think I’ve ever ordered anything I didn’t like. My all time favorite appetizer is the Smokie City, part fondue, part chunky stew, all scrumdiddlyumptious. It’s loaded with chunks of smoked fish and potatoes with loads of delicious cheese. It’s usually enough for two people to share. They serve it with toasted bread to facilitate dipping and scooping action. We tried the Chicken Wings on this occasion. They tasted very good, and were cooked correctly, nothing under-cooked or over-cooked. The portion size was small though. Between both appetizers, drinks, and bread, we were full and satisfied. Raglan Road is definitely one of the better places to eat at Disney, and one of my favorites.

The Territory Lounge is located in Disney’s Wilderness Lodge. It is adjacent to Artist Point, one of Disney’s signature restaurants. Territory Lounge has a limited food menu, they do have several options that should accommodate most tastes, it’s not ideal for vegetarians or those who don’t eat pork or beef. It falls a bit short for our particular food requirements.

We usually will stop by Territory Lounge for drinks and snacks. They have a full bar and can prepare mixed drinks, and they serve wine and beer as well. On this occasion we ordered a Smokey Portobello Soup and the Buffalo Chicken. The soup is on the Artist Point menu but also available at Territory Lounge. The soup is sublime, I would highly recommend it. The Buffalo Chicken was very spicy, it actually went well with the soup, but it was perhaps too much heat for what we were in the mood for. If we order this again, we’ll have them put the sauce on the side. The blue cheese dressing and celery were excellent. The menu is pretty limited, so we just picked the two things we thought sounded best at the time. Unfortunately, they no longer offer any bread service, in the past they had served bread from Artist Point or corn bread from Whispering Canyon.

Reservations are not required. The lounge can sometimes get quite busy, but often times it’s a nice quiet and cozy little place to relax. I’d recommend checking the menu first though to make sure that there is something you would like to try (check for the Territory Lounge menu at Allears.net or at Disneyworld.com).

This is the Headhunter Sushi Roll available at both Trader Sam’s Grog Grotto and also at Trader Sam’s Tiki Terrace at Disney’s Polynesian Village Resort. The roll has raw salmon and raw tuna. It comes with a hibiscus sauce, which is supposed to look like blood when poured. The roll looked very appetizing. However, our sushi wasn’t very good, the rice was hard. I think they had made it ahead of time in order to keep up with demand, due to hordes of people during the first week they were open. I think if it was made fresh with softer rice, it would have been much better.

We might try this again, but I’m going to be sure to ask if the rice is fresh. I hate when sushi tastes like grocery store sushi – bleh!

Perhaps one of the hardest place to get into on Disney property is currently the NEW Trader Sam’s Grog Grotto. Although it’s not officially open yet, they had a soft opening on 3/28/15. We decided to check it out Monday 3/30/15. We got a pager quickly, however the wait time to get into Trader Sam’s was a little over 2 hours. This is probably going to improve considerably over time, however until the newness wears off, this is what you can expect. It was reported that on opening day, the wait time was 3 hours to get a pager, and then 3 more hours to get inside. A two hour wait is a considerable improvement, but keep in mind it was Monday; weekend crowds will probably be considerably larger.

The place is actually quite small, very small, and seems even smaller with a lot of people inside. The capacity inside is capped at 50, I think there are at least 8 cast members inside, so in reality perhaps room for 42? That is speculation on my part, I didn’t take an actual ‘head count’ – hardy har, but there seems to be seating for about 40. Sadly, some of the bench seating is wasted space because there isn’t enough tables for people to sit across the whole bench.

It was very loud inside, the cast members are required to perform/interact with guests according to what drinks are ordered. Each specialty drink ordered has a certain interactive effect. For instance if you order the Shrunken Zombie Head, the cast members cue the Shrunken Head effects, the black light comes on and illuminates the heads hanging in the rafters, some special music comes on. If you order the Polynesian Pearl, the bartender has to open and pull a pearl out of the giant clam at the back of the bar. There is more…best to see it for yourself.

We ordered a Tuna Poke, which was delicious, but really small. We also spent time on Trader Sam’s Tiki Terrace Outside, I’ll be sure to make a separate post for those photos and information.

Overall, I liked the new bar. Seating is very limited, they do not give you an assigned seat, once you get paged, you are set loose to find your own seats. So, we ended up at the bar – at the only seats available – which wasn’t that comfortable. Ideally, I would want to sit at a table. It was so crowded, I didn’t feel comfortable to take a look around the place and see all the details. I didn’t feel comfortable to sit and stay a while. It was like a pseudo frat party atmosphere, lots of yelling and hype – like you would expect from out of control spring-breakers, which I don’t find appealing. Some people were standing because there wasn’t room to sit.

We’ll probably be back in two weeks to check it out again, maybe the craziness will have died down by then. We love our souvenir drinking glasses, we’ll probably try a couple different drinks next time. With some luck, maybe we’ll get a table instead. This is definitely a place you will want to see for yourself.